IFJ Monthly SAMSN Bulletin - June 2013

Welcome to the e-bulletin of the South Asia
Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) for the month of June 2013.
The next bulletin will be sent on July 15,
2013, and inputs are most welcome. We encourage
contributions to let others know what you are doing; to seek
solidarity and support from other SAMSN members; and to find
out what others are doing in the region.

SAMSN is a group
of journalists’ trade unions, press freedom organisations
and journalists in South Asia that have agreed to work
together to support freedom of expression and association in
the region. SAMSN was formed at a meeting of these groups in
Kathmandu, Nepal, in September 2004. The group agreed to
stand in solidarity and work together for media reform, for
an independent pluralist media and to build public respect
for the work of journalists in the region.

A standing committee of the
Indian parliament has called for a statutory body to
regulate print and electronic media. In a report submitted
early-May, the Parliamentary Standing Committee attached to
the Government’s Department of Information Technology
inquired into the practice of “paid news” or paid for
content being passed off as news rather than advertising. It
observed that the practice had been prevalent not only in
the context of elections, but also for purposes of promoting
particular corporate and individual interests. In the light
of the failure of the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting to evolve suitable checks on a practice that
seriously erodes the public interest, the Standing Committee
called for a body invested with statutory powers to regulate
the media industry. Leading spokespersons of the media
industry have reiterated their commitment towards evolving a
suitable framework of self-regulation. Further details at:
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/zcygRgFikOFQv89l8T5hOL/Parliamentary-panel-calls-for-media-watchdog.html.
Full text of the Standing Committee report is available at:
http://164.100.47.134/committee/committee_informations.aspx.

India’s
Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, addressed the
seventeenth biennial session of the National Union of
Journalists (India) (NUJ(I)) at Aligarh in the northern
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on June 15. The Vice-President
took note of the practice of “paid news” and the growth
of monopoly ownership in different sectors of the media. He
referred to a recent report by the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India, which pointed to a direct link between
“uncontrolled ownership, paid news and corporate and
political lobbying by the private news channels”. NUJ(I)
president Prajnananda Chaudhuri drew attention to the long
delay in the implementation of the latest wage award for the
newspaper industry, which he said was a serious threat to
press freedom. Further details at: http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=800808.

3.Television ratings system in India in
crisis, as broadcasters withdraw

Already under a
cloud following a USD 1.5 billion lawsuit filed by leading
broadcaster NDTV Ltd., India’s TV ratings system,
administered by the AC Nielsen promoted TAM Media, plunged
further into crisis with a number of leading broadcasters
unsubscribing from its services on the grounds that its
figures were not reliable any more. The apex body of the
broadcasting industry, the Indian Broadcasting Federation,
has launched plans to set up an alternative system of
audience measurement under the Broadcast Audience Research
Council. Further details at: http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k13/jun/junmam32.php
and http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k13/jun/jun83.php.

The Ministry of Mass Media and Information
in Sri Lanka has introduced a draft “code of ethics” for
the media in Parliament early-June. This follows the revival
in 2010 of the long-lapsed Sri Lanka Press Councils Act of
1973, which has a provision enabling the government to
notify a code of ethics for the media. This newly introduced
code covers the print and electronic media, news websites
and advertisements published in all forms of media. It
incorporates strong language requiring that it should be
“honoured in letter and spirit” and introduces thirteen
specific grounds on which media content could be prohibited.
Well over half of the code deals with explicit prohibitions
on advertisement content. Many of its clauses are vaguely
phrased and would allow for broad interpretations. SAMSN
partners have called for the code to be withdrawn and the
regulatory process sponsored by the press through the Press
Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka (PCCSL) to be
strengthened. Further details at: http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/sri-lankan-government-must-reconsider-move-to-introduce-ethics-code-for-media.

6.Journalists killed in Pakistan,
Afghanistan

SAMSN partners have sharply condemned
two tragic killings of journalists in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Ahmed Ali Joiya, twenty-five year old reporter
for several local newspapers was killed on May 24 in the
district of Bahawalnagar in Punjab province of Pakistan.
Joiya had been consulting sources within the local police on
a crime story and had been threatened by a known criminal
element in the district. He was shot dead in a marketplace
by two unidentified men. Meanwhile, the body of Mohammad
Mohsin Hashmi, a technician and reporter with the radio
station Sada-e-Nijrab was found on May 20, in the Nijrab
district of the eastern Afghanistan province of Kapisa, two
weeks after he had gone missing. The body bore several stab
wounds and nobody had at the time of writing, taken
responsibility for his killing. Further details at: http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/another-tragic-killing-of-a-journalist-in-pakistan
and http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/journalist-killed-in-eastern-afghanistan-province-second-in-current-month.

SAMSN partners have reacted
sharply following a statement issued by the supposed command
centre of the Maoist insurgency in the Indian state of
Chhattisgarh, which directly targets Shubhranshu Choudhary,
a widely respected journalist and pioneer in using new
technologies to broaden public access to the media sphere.
This followed a story filed by Chaoudhary on May 27 for the
Hindi service of the BBC, presenting an analysis of a lethal
insurgent attack on a political convoy returning to the
state capital of Raipur from a public engagement in the
southern district of Dantewada. Choudhary’s analysis of
the calculations behind this attack attracted a seeming
rebuke and a disguised threat from the “Special Zonal
Committee” of the Maoist insurgency in the region. Further
details at: http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/journalist-and-broadcasting-pioneer-threatened-by-maoists-in-india.

9.Journalists from India’s north-eastern
states form federation

Journalists from the eight
states of north-eastern India – Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim,
Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura
– formed a federation following deliberations in the
cities of Guwahati in Assam and Shillong in Meghalaya,
between June 8 and 10. According to the preamble of the
declaration adopted on the occasion, the Northeast India
Federation of Journalists will seek to “strengthen freedom
of expression and access to information, healthy public
dialogue, conflict resolution and democratic processes
through promotion of quality and independent journalism
underpinned by the respect for economic and professional
rights of journalists and media workers”. The eight
north-eastern states pose a number of serious safety and
security challenges for journalists on account of armed
insurgencies and constant civil disturbances. The IFJ and
SAMSN have in recent years carried out a number of missions
in the area and campaigned for improved working conditions
for journalists. Further details at: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130611/jsp/northeast/story_16993242.jsp#.Ub6Vr9jQ4t1.

Raajje TV, an independent broadcaster
in the Maldives has protested as “biased”, a warning
issued by the Maldives Broadcasting Commission, for a
violation of applicable broadcasting standards. The warning
pertained to a news-item broadcast on February 23, in which
the channel reportedly described a political rally at which
threats were allegedly made by a party aligned with the
government to attack members of the opposition Maldives
Democratic Party. Raajje TV, which is aligned with the
opposition in its editorial policy, has said that it will
appeal to the Maldives Media Council, which is the statutory
regulator set up by law, to have the warning rescinded.
Further details at: http://minivannews.com/politics/raajje-tv-alleges-maldives-broadcasting-commission-warning-biased-59187.

11.Sri
Lankan journalists write to UN Human Rights
Council

SAMSN partners in Sri Lanka have joined
other human rights bodies in addressing a memorandum to the
U.N. Human Rights Council, demanding closer critical
scrutiny of the ongoing pattern of attacks on freedom of
expression, credible and independent investigations in all
past cases of attacks on freedom of expression, support and
protection for journalists and media institutions under
threat and closer monitoring of the implementation of
applicable covenants on human rights and freedom of
expression. Further details at: http://www.srilankabrief.org/2013/05/sri-lanka-systematic-attacks-on-freedom.html.

Arundika Fernando, a
member from the ruling United Progressive Freedom Alliance,
announced in the Sri Lankan parliament on June 5 that he had
met Prageeth Ekneligoda, cartoonist and political
commentator who went missing in Colombo in January 2010.
Fernando claims that he was introduced to Ekneligoda in
Paris by another journalist who has been living in exile
since early 2009. The claim has stirred up a controversy
with opposition parties demanding that the Government follow
up on the statement by tracing the long-missing journalist
and Ekneligoda’s wife demanding that Fernando be summoned
to the next hearing of an ongoing habeas corpus
petition that she has filed in a Colombo Court. Further
details at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/30578-wediwardena-introduced-prageeth-in-france-arundika.html
and http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/30868-yes-he-is-there-arundika.html.

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